Weekly Roundup For Your Weekend Reading – June 2

“No Christian wants to be tempted, yet every Christian will be tempted. In fact, every Christian will inevitably endure times of grueling temptation, when the opportunity to sin and even the desire to sin are nearly overwhelming. The Bible promises that temptations will arise from within and from without, for the Christian’s great enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil—are arrayed against us, each attacking with its own weapon of sinful desire. Each day and each hour, we find our hearts stirred for those things God forbids. Such is life as sinful people in a sinful world. If we are to endure and resist temptation, to come out of temptation refined and not ruined, we must take an offensive posture against it. We do this by watchfulness, by praying against temptation, and by studying our hearts for the first signs of its stirrings….”

“We all love it when life leaps into forward gear and we make all kinds of progress. Problems just seem to fall away. Perhaps in your life you’ve had a season like that, a season when your life seemed to shine and flourish. Maybe it was when you first became a believer or during some period when you were very well nurtured by good community and wise input. Then there are those seasons where things go very slowly. You wonder, “Is this all there is? Why do I keep struggling with the same old things? I keep losing my temper, or feeling anxious, or being clumsy in relationships . . . ” What vision does God give us for what our lives are supposed to look like, especially when we’re dealing with the long, hard struggle part of being a Christian? Let me say two things….”

“We can turn anything, no matter how trivial, into an idol, and we are skilled at masking our idols. We can even excuse them away as something like preference. But the heart of idolatry is forgetting who God is and, instead, worshipping self. So, we must be diligent about examining our hearts and guarding against idolatry. Here are four sneaky idols—good things turned into gods—that can turn our hearts away from the One who is worthy of our full worship and praise….”